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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28528941">The Night We Met</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kj_graham/pseuds/kj_graham'>kj_graham</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s13e06 Tombstone, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Reunions, Sharing a Bed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:21:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,208</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28528941</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kj_graham/pseuds/kj_graham</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas smiles. It’s the best thing Sam has seen all day, other than the moment he stepped out of the Impala and saw his angel standing under church neon. He leans in further, presses their foreheads together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Night We Met</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassammy/gifts">Cassammy</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy New Year, Cassammy! Hope 2021 brings health and happiness &lt;3 (and, of course, amazing sastiel content.) Enjoy &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Sam’s exhausted. He should be going to bed. But there’s an electric hum running through him, like someone’s enervated him with live wires. He can’t go to bed. He can’t go to sleep.</p>
<p class="p1">He can’t go to bed, because Castiel is back, and if he opens his eyes to an empty bed, unworn trench coat, and no angel, he doesn’t know what he’ll do.</p>
<p class="p1">Castiel seems to understand. He can’t keep his hands off of Sam. On their drive back to the bunker, he’d leaned forward so that he could rest a hand on Sam’s shoulder, or brush his fingers through the waving ends of his hair. Now, in Sam’s room, his hands keep up a steady exploration, like he’s cataloguing Sam’s body.</p>
<p class="p1">Sam lays back, and Cas lays back with him, his hands running over Sam’s chest, up along his neck and coming to rest on his cheek. Sam leans into it, blinks misty toward Cas’s blue eyes.</p>
<p class="p1">“We thought you were really gone,” he murmurs. “I…<em>I</em> thought you were really gone. When Lucifer…when he stabbed you…”</p>
<p class="p1">Cas’s thumb presses smooth against Sam’s lips. He moves a bit closer, close enough that Sam thinks they’re breathing the same air.</p>
<p class="p1">“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it back sooner. I’m sorry that I was gone at all.”</p>
<p class="p1">Sam swallows past a raw lump and shakes his head. The last thing he wants to hear is an apology; the last thing he wants is more sorrow. “Don’t. Don’t apologize. I’m just…Cas, I’m really glad you’re back.”</p>
<p class="p1">Cas smiles. It’s the best thing Sam has seen all day, other than the moment he stepped out of the Impala and saw his angel standing under church neon. He leans in further, presses their foreheads together. Sam misses the thumb on his bottom lip when Cas moves it, but then Cas is kissing him.</p>
<p class="p1">There’s flame in Sam’s veins. It spreads to his fingertips, down to his legs, pools in his center and his chest and his mouth. It charges his touch when he rests his hand at the nape of Cas’s neck, curling his fingers into the dark hair there. It’s softer than he remembers. It’s always softer than he remembers, and he’s suddenly filled with a paradoxical ache, like having Cas here makes him fully aware of just how many holes were torn open by his absence.</p>
<p class="p1">Sam pulls Cas closer, just because he can, just because he needs the touch. Cas’s mouth is sweet on his, the five o’clock shadow on his skin tickling Sam’s chin. Cas’s fingertips are cold where they’re pressed against the small of Sam’s back. Sam tries not to think about how many new scars are meeting Cas’s touch.</p>
<p class="p1">Sam tries to think of nothing at all, tries to lose himself in the moment he’s been dreaming of for months on end, but his mind whirls. He closed his eyes reflexively when Cas first kissed him, but now he squeezes them even tighter shut.</p>
<p class="p1">He fears what he’ll see if he opens them. He’s had this dream countless times for too many nights. He’s opened his eyes to Lucifer, to a blank-eyed, dead Cas, to viscous Leviathan goo spreading through a lake, to the imprint of wings on damp sand. In every one of these dreams, he’s seen his worst fears and his bitterest hopes.</p>
<p class="p1">The worst dreams were the ones where nothing went wrong at all. Where Sam got Cas back, no strings attached, got to hold him and kiss him and hear his voice. He always woke with a smile on his face, just for a moment, until the yawning emptiness of his bed sank in and reality snapped onto his wrists like shackles.</p>
<p class="p1">Cas breaks their kiss for a moment, and Sam swallows an embarrassingly needing noise. Dread calcifies his stomach as he opens his eyes, but he isn’t met with an empty bed, empty arms, empty room.</p>
<p class="p1">He’s met with Cas, with brilliant cerulean eyes, with the cool smooth fabric of the trench coat under his palm and Cas’s hair still threaded between his fingers.</p>
<p class="p1">Sam releases the breath stuck in his chest. They’re quiet for a moment before he says, “I keep thinking I’m dreaming.”</p>
<p class="p1">Cas tilts his head a little. “Did you dream about this?”</p>
<p class="p1">“Yeah,” Sam says, dropping his gaze so he doesn’t have to look Cas in the eyes. “I dreamt about it…a lot. You being gone wasn’t exactly easy.”</p>
<p class="p1">Cas kisses the tip of his nose. “I’m sorry that we were ever separated to begin with. I’m sorry my absence was difficult.”</p>
<p class="p1">Sam snorts. It’s a bitter noise, old grief and pain rising to the surface and bubbling just under his skin like tar. “I love you. You being gone for any reason is never easy, but you’re usually…you’re usually alive, at least.”</p>
<p class="p1">Cas doesn’t say anything. He’s staring at Sam, eyes narrowed, like he’s confused.</p>
<p class="p1">“Cas?”</p>
<p class="p1">“You said you love me,” Cas says. His tone is almost flat; Sam can’t read it, can’t really read the stoic look on Cas’s face, and the paralyzing dread returns, slowly turning him to rock from the inside out.</p>
<p class="p1">“Is that not okay?” Sam asks, feeling unsure. Maybe this is a bad dream after all. “We can just pretend I never said it. It’s okay.”</p>
<p class="p1">“No,” Cas says quickly, so emphatically it makes Sam jump a little. “No, Sam. You’ve just never said it out loud to me before. I was surprised.”</p>
<p class="p1">Sam blinks. “I haven’t?”</p>
<p class="p1">Cas shakes his head. “Not in words. I know you love me through your actions, through the time we share and the things we do, even the conversations we have, but I don’t believe you’ve ever voiced it before.”</p>
<p class="p1">“Oh…” Sam is quiet for a moment. “Well I do. Love you. I’m sorry I’ve never told you before.”</p>
<p class="p1">Cas smiles at him, the kind of smile that Sam thinks only he has ever seen. “I know you do.”</p>
<p class="p1">Then Cas is leaning in and kissing him again, and Sam can melt into it this time, let the electrifying heat rush through him and make him pliant and blissful.</p>
<p class="p1">Castiel is here. He is alive again, as seems to be the way with the Winchesters and those around them. He is here, and Sam still isn’t sure that this isn’t a dream.</p>
<p class="p1">But Cas’s hands are warm, running down his back and over his sides, his mouth soft, body solid against Sam’s.</p>
<p class="p1">If it is a dream, it’s the best dream Sam has ever had.</p>
<p class="p1">He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he finally starts to crash, exhaustion catching up to him quickly and the high of Cas’s return fading into a steady sense of rightness in his veins.</p>
<p class="p1">Cas holds him close, arms tight around him, chin buried in Sam’s hair. Just before he falls asleep, Sam hears the guttural sound he’s learned is Enochian for <em>I love you.</em></p>
<p class="p1">For the first time in months, he falls asleep without fearing the deep shadows in his head, the darkness in his room or prospect of facing everything alone. He falls asleep safe, and loved, and still praying he isn’t clinging to a dream.</p>
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